Yes, Commander
by f3tid
Summary: A little insight into the first time Garrus Vakarian recognized Dae Shepard as his superior. May or may not be continued.


**Yes, Commander**

The shuttle bay doors seal with the machinated shrieks of unattended metal. It saturates the air in its shrill nonvitality and washes the habitual orchestra of work in pallor. The bloodless cry of discomfited metals does not escape the Normandy's industrial floor, and it does not exceed the gravity of its commander's displeasure. Her hermetically sealed helmet disengages with a scream and a billow of steam.

No sooner does it find perch between Shepard's hands than it does the floor. She throws it with such ire, such insurmountable anger, that the sound of her helmet's collision overshadows the closing of the shuttle bay's mighty doors. The action is immediate. The sound is deafening. It tempts no explanation and demands recompense. Garrus finds the human's eyes as though beckoned.

Years of militant instruction forbid him to speak before spoken to, though his maw parts upon a quiet inhale. He watches as the small woman storms toward him on laden legs. Her armor clings to her vulnerable flesh like a second skin with less finesse and abstraction. Her coating is hard, bulky and inorganic in all the places they naturally are not, in her species. Her lips say nothing, but the immovable scowl they boast bays that he submit. He nearly salutes her as she halts before him, and he does not know why.

"You want to tell me just what the _fuck_ that was out there?" Her voice penetrates even the meekest of noises present there, in the hangar, and leaves silence in its wake. "Explain yourself, Vakarian - that's an order."

"Ma'am?" The turian inquires with the tailored stringency his blood demanded.

Rich brown skin knots between the commander's brows. Her violet eyes scald and an evanescent sheen of blue light engulfs her. The artful way her fingers tauten into fists are not lost on the officer. He affixes his eyes to hers once again. His expression is illegible to her, he knows.

"Teg Pershing, the man whose life you scarcely missed taking today," the woman seethes, "Give me one goddamn reason not to strand you right here on this rock."

"With due respect, Commander, I wasn't aware of Pershing's affiliation, so I disabled his shields as a precaution."

"You're lucky he _had_ shields!"

"Ma'am, he was fleeing a firefight and clad in armor."

"It was a fuel extraction point, outfitted with heavy private security! The only ones fleeing the site were employees. Armor or no armor, we do not, under any circumstances, shoot civilians."

"Understood, ma'am."

She skirts a stolid curve before him, glare sterile as a razor blade as it peels his thick flesh back and coaxes blood from vein. "Is it, Vakarian? I'm not terribly convinced this case is pled."

"Ma'am, my actions were valid in reasoning and execution. Had I been shooting with intent to kill, I would have."

"Officer, every bullet on the field is fired with intent to kill!" She roars, this time stealing closer. He gazes down at her from his altitude, pupils pinpricked. "Listen, I don't know how they had you playing with the law back on the Citadel, but this is a Council operation we're running on my goddamn watch, on my goddamn ship. You wanna play hard and loose, Vakarian?"

She advances on her toes, elevating as close as her physiology will allow her. Her voice is low and irate. "You play hard and loose, but not on my ship."

"Ma'am," he attempts again.

"_Not on my ship._" The commander does not shout, nor simply speak. The hangar rumbles with the resonance of her voice and the gravity expounded by her small frame. She turns and exits. Wounds with the indentation of her words scar him. He watches the spectre of where his commander had been.

"Yes, Commander." He says.

He had been wrong.

* * *

**Disclaimer**: I do not own nor claim ownership of either of the above characters. Commander Shepard and Garrus Vakarian are the property of BioWare, as is the Normandy and any and all things related to or within the Mass Effect domain. I do, however, own my prose and plagiarism is unwelcome and unacceptable.

**Author's Note**: It may or may not be apparent, but this is based upon the first game in the series, and I intended for it to be demonstrative of Garrus and Shepard's strained first couple of interactions. Considering Shep and Garrus are a couple in my game, I was interested in writing them before they got close. That said, I'm not sure I'll ever turn this into something. It's just a snippet I had laying around, burning a hole into my hard drive, and since I'm taking longer than anticipated to update my other works, I decided to proofread and post this little...something, or other. If it's all the same, enjoy and happy scrolling!


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